CBR: Tilting at Windmills - Feb 9, 2012

[CBR News]

Brian Hibbs returns with TILTING AT WINDMILLS' annual analysis of the sales numbers for graphic novels in the bookstore market, and discovers a few surprises in the 2011 data.


Full article here.

[Zoidberg, M.D.]

You BookScan analysis is one of my favorite comicbook articles every year. As always, very interesting.
Thanks for the effort.

[Rollo Tomassi]

That is seriously fascinating reading, Brian. Thanks for doing ALL of that!

*Edited for foolishness*

[John Jackson Miller]

Another good article, Brian. As in past years, I have used it to inform my piece on the size of the overall market, fusing most of the known data. Comics are 45% of the overall market, trades 55%. But the Direct Market is still larger than the bookstore market.

[Lemurion]

Interesting, and it just goes to show how far off the mark Dan Buckley was in his recent interview when he discussed Marvel's collections program - it clearly isn't working.

[sandwich eater]

I wonder how the Season One initiative will work out for Marvel.

[amcpherson]

Didn't Barnes & Noble stop selling a bunch of DC books because of their exclusivity deal with Amazon's Kindle? I wonder what effect that had on their Bookscan numbers?

[rolacka]

Thank you for doing this analysis Brian - it is always really interesting.

Marvel have done awfully again! It is shocking just how badly they do. I completely agree with Brian's comments on the volume of comics coming out before film strategy - there are far too many and I would not consider buying them myself.

I didn't see Brian mention Spider-man for Marvel beyond him selling $672k. I opened the excel file of the top 750 and searched title for 'spider' and nothing came up. I really hope I am being dense and have missed something, but does that mean no spider-man comic made the top 750? That is just bizzare. Based on their popularity and fame, Spider-man should be up against Batman every year for top selling superhero (there were 34 series with 'Batman' in the title).

DC market Batman very effectively, or perhaps it is just that their publishing strategy over the years has led there to be more strong limited series or short runs (i.e. that can be collected in a single volume) than Marvel, who maybe focus more on longer runs, whereas their limited series are less pivotal to the characters.

[sandwich eater]

DC market Batman very effectively, or perhaps it is just that their publishing strategy over the years has led there to be more strong limited series or short runs (i.e. that can be collected in a single volume) than Marvel, who maybe focus more on longer runs, whereas their limited series are less pivotal to the characters.

Off the top of my head I can only think of Kraven's Last Hunt, as a Spider-Man story that might do well as a standalone trade for new readers, but even that is mired in the continuity of Spidey having a different costume from his normal one at that time. I wouldn't even know where to start if I had to recommend an X-Men trade to someone. DC does have more classic standalone stories like The Dark Knight Returns or The Killing Joke, but I think part of the fun of reading Marvel comics is the continuity.

[rolacka]

Off the top of my head I can only think of Kraven's Last Hunt, as a Spider-Man story that might do well as a standalone trade for new readers, but even that is mired in the continuity of Spidey having a different costume from his normal one at that time. I wouldn't even know where to start if I had to recommend an X-Men trade to someone. DC does have more classic standalone stories like The Dark Knight Returns or The Killing Joke, but I think part of the fun of reading Marvel comics is the continuity.

I realised after I posted yesterday that I can't think of any standalone Spider-man either. In fact I have never read any (non-ultimate) spider-man comics, partly because I wouldn't really know where to start.

I tend to enjoy longer runs too, and think Marvel have quite a few accessible series that should be popular in book stores, but they run over multiple volumes and perhaps the naming/branding is off-putting and confusing?

I don't know, it just seems that in a year where a Captain America movie comes out Brubaker's run should do really well, and Marvel tend to name and number Brubaker's collections especially badly.

Actually I think the 'Ultimate Collections' (the brand of 10-13 issues collected together - not the imprint) are perfect for book stores, as they often collect some of the most popular runs in 2 or 3 volumes for quite a good price.

[Brian Hibbs]

Actually I think the 'Ultimate Collections' (the brand of 10-13 issues collected together - not the imprint) are perfect for book stores, as they often collect some of the most popular runs in 2 or 3 volumes for quite a good price.

Too bad that both v1 of the "Ultimate" collection of Ultimate Spidey as well as JMS's run of Spidey are both out of print from Marvel!

-B

[Hanzo the Razor]

A huge problem with the "Big Two" is the lack of trade numbering and sense of consistent continuity.

If I see Walking Dead on TV, what do I do? I go to the bookstore and find Walking Dead Vol. 1; when I'm done, I get Vol. 2, etc.

If I see Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger, Green Lantern, or X-Men: First Class... now what? The spines aren't numbered, so you don't know which book to read first and when you look at the content, it's all over the place -- flipping through Captain America, a non-reader could feel baffled looking at the Silver Age charm of Essential Captain America, the 80's cheese of Captain America: The Captain, and the noir vibe of the Brubaker trades.

They're not making it easy for a new reader, especially a child, to get into these books.

I hope that part of DC's "New 52" strategy is providing clear, distinct numbering on their trades so that any fan looking for Batman this summer will be able to jump on with relative ease.